McCain loses another member of his base

McCain used to refer to the press as his "base." But that base is gradually eroding. The latest apostate is Elizabeth Drew of the Politico, former writer of the "Letter from Washington" column for the New Yorker and a prominent member of the DC press corps. In today's Politico, she talks about her longtime admiration for McCain, and her dismay when she first realized that "the former free-spirited, supposedly principled, maverick was morphing into just another panderer – to Bush and the Republican Party’s conservative base."

As Steve Benen notes, "McCain is certainly losing friends fast, isn't he? Drew's condemnation comes just a couple of days after Richard Cohen's. Which came a couple of days after Stephen Chapman's. Which followed Michael Kinsley, Thomas Friedman, Sebastian Mallaby, Joe Klein, E.J. Dionne, Jr., Ruth Marcus, Mark Halperin, and Bob Herbert. Even David Brooks is getting there."

As is the case with Drew's, the condemnations are almost universally accompanied by tributes to the "lost" McCain and lamentations over his passing. But Atrios thinks that the nostalgia and sorrow are misplaced. "The sad thing is that few of these people will acknowledge that they simply got played, and instead want to cast McCain as a character in a play about a man's tragic downfall. He was always an unprincipled hack, but for a very long time his political fortunes were the result of his understanding of and willingness to cater to the desires of elite Villagers. Now he has a different target."

That target is the White House. And McCain has made it plain that he intends to let nothing stop him from reaching it. Especially not principles. Or honor. Or the truth.